Sunday, February 3, 2013

Stealing time away.....

The joy of working on one's own quilt
cannot be suppressed! When you quilt for a living, there is precious
little time to work on one's own pieces. Or, at least, that's what
you think when you say to yourself “You ought to be working on a
customer's piece!”

Here's a peek at a piece I started one
year ago, at Quilt Camp with my Peeps. I paper-pieced the feathered
star and its flying geese border during the three days we get
together each March. Wow! It's already a year later!

I don't think I've ever created a real
Medallion quilt. You start in the center with a fabulous block, and
then design, piece and add new borders as you go along. A LOT OF MATH
is necessary here. No getting around it! The border called Chain of
Squares had to meet perfectly at each of the four corners. Yup, it
did! Of course, to cheat a little, you put in a “spacer” strip
that is not pieced so that you can trim it down, if need be,
so that the pieced border fits.

So now I am piecing the 8-point stars
to go into the four corners of the next border. The solid (well, not
quite solid – it is a batik) border will be getting some kind of
applique; I'm still working in my mind what that should look like. I
love the organic shapes that Ricky Tims uses and I am definitely
leaning toward something like that.

I
have completed 4 stars -- can you see which one does not go well with
the others? When I picked out the fabrics for the very first star, I
was overly concerned with contrast, and only chose the darkest, the
lightest and the “quietest” of mediums. After I pieced it, I
realized that I had left some of the prettiest fabrics back in the
box, and I thought the star was, well, blah.
Back to the box to pull some of the more vibrant pieces, and I can
see now that the next three stars are much prettier. I will throw out
the first one and make another.

Or, maybe should I
be working on that king size customer quilt that is waiting on the frame?!!! Hmmmmm.